


Vengeance

by Haywire



Category: The Armored Saint
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 12:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/pseuds/Haywire
Summary: Heloise sneaks away for a private moment to remember one of the fallen.





	Vengeance

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the end of The Armored Saint.

Heloise snuck out once her mother had passed out. She knew she was supposed to be resting, but she couldn’t, not yet.

Her mother had kept a vigil on her since she’d been pulled from the wreckage of Barnard’s first war machine. The mangled heap of slag and steel had served her well, allowing her to fell a devil, but it had also forged her into the woman she now was, for better or worse.

As if on cue, phantom pain flared up from her missing right hand. Heloise frowned at the new bandages, which were already discoloured and damp with her blood. Her mother had changed them twice already, the last not more than an hour ago, before sitting down to rest herself, and now she fatigue had won out as she slept soundlessly in a rocking chair across from Heloise’s bed.

Ignoring the pain, she slipped out of her sheets and crept downstairs. Heloise retrieved a candle from the cupboard along with a single match. She checked once more to make sure her father wasn’t home, then snuck out into the darkness.

Heloise made a beeline for the woods, making sure to remain low and unseen. She spotted her father along with some of the other elders - Sigir, Barnard, and the tinker’s sons among them - training the other villagers in the town square. Only a handful of them had any combat experience, but they all would find themselves locked in battle in the coming days, if not hours.

The Order was coming for them. She was sure of it.

Shrugging that thought away for now, Heloise entered the nearby forest and to her ultimate destination: the empty ruins of the roundhouse, where Clodio had brought her just the other night but what now felt like a lifetime ago.

Dead ashes and scorched stone were all that remained in Clodio’s fire pit, and she said a silent prayer to the Emperor for her friend.

He wasn’t the one she was there to grieve, however. Rearranging the rocks, Heloise made an impromptu candleholder and slid the waxy cylinder in between the series of stones before lighting it.

The flame flared to life, brilliant and orange against the surrounding darkness, before steadying itself, burning constant, bright, and warm.

Basina.

Oh, her beloved Basina.

Heloise let her defenses fall, let her grief wash over her. She’d failed to protect her as she’d sworn to herself, had let the devil slay her. If she’d just been faster, moved quicker, something, anything.

The candle flickered as a breeze wafted through the battered walls of the roundhouse. Her tears still fell, but her eyes watched the candle, winking at her before dying, leaving a thin plume of smoke behind.

She knew what she had to do. Vengeance for Basina drove her onward, stoked the fire within her heart that burned on.

Vengeance would be hers, but for now she mourned her beloved for just a little longer before she had to return home.


End file.
